Linux: A Portable Operating System (1997) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Linux: A Portable Operating System (1997) [pdf]

cs.helsinki.fi

122 pointskick16 comments

Turns out the most important part of the entire text is the acknowledgements section.

for the lazy:

> While the Linux project has been closely associated with me personally, partly due to the name, I would like to make it very clear that the Linux operating system is a huge project done co-operatively by lots of people all over the world. Even if you discount all the user-level programs that are an integral part of any running Linux system, just the kernel contains code from hundreds of people from all around the world. Thanks to all of you

Was he so talented or has the bar for CS master thesis lowered significantly since then?

He was far above the bar. From Wikipedia:

> In 1997, Torvalds received his master's degree (Laudatur Grade) from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki.

Also surprising to see that he didn't pursue a Ph.D., although he does have a doctor status:

> Two years later he received honorary doctor status at Stockholm University, and in 2000, he received the same honor from his alma mater.

Anyway, I'd like to see the theses of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Cool. I'd expect him to get the Ph.d. in like 20 years after graduation, not two. That's significant.

Honorary doctor is not the same thing as a PhD.

Let's attempt to keep two conflicting thoughts in our heads at the same time:

1) Linus is fantastic. We owe him so much! He has changed computing in a very forceful and persistent way - people will rightfully remember him long after we're all gone - along with dmr and ken, of course.

2) Stockholm University didn't even have a computer science education at the time (I think) (in Stockholm, this was only offered by KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology). Either way, KTH is far more prestigious in this area.

Because of that Stockholm University made him an honorary doctor in Mathematics: https://www.math.su.se/english/about-us/prizes-awards (!)

In my opinion: this particular honorific event was just a result of trying to get a famous name, sort of how like the frankly speaking pathetic Nobel Peace Prize committee in Oslo keeps trying to meet famous people. (Like Obama, before he had even entered office.) It's embarassing to everyone involved.

> I'd like to see the theses of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

It's not what you were asking for but here's Buzz Aldrin's doctoral thesis on manned orbital rendezvous: https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/12652

There isn't a 'bar' for any master's thesis as far as I'm aware, at least in the way you are implying.

Depends on a country and educational system, right? Yet usually there is someone or some committee which decides whether a piece of work is sufficient for a student to get a master's degree. In other words, they set a bar.

The bar can vastly differ among universities and generations. That's why I asked in the first place.

Well, Claude Shannon's 1937 master's thesis in EE pretty much invented digital circuit design with boolean algebra ... but I wouldn't say everyone who came after him was lowering the bar :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon#Logic_circuits

There were less students at his time. If there was a way to plot "average added value" of a master's theses trough out the last century, I'd expect it to be non zero historically and then to exponentially converge to zero.

A masters theses is basically just a project and a report. Usually little to no original research. It's more about practicing writing reports than anything else.

A masters thesis is original research and a phd thesis is a significant contribution to the field.

Linux kernel is easily more than just a development project.

>A masters thesis is original research and a phd thesis is a significant contribution to the field.

In theory. Usually it is just pandering to the acceptance commission.

Depends. A PhD thesis with negative results (one that does not disprove the null hypothesis) is still original research and still counts for the poor chap that made it for the degree.

You cannot know a priori that you will have positive results that will advance the field.

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